It's no surprise that this week's column about TriMet buses running redlights stirred up a busload of reactions (as I mentioned, the topic is near and dear to a lot of commuters). Judging from the e-mails and phone calls, there's no shortage of readers who have had near-death experiences with buses rolling through intersections against the light.

Seriously, there's apparently a book's worth of stories from pedestrians, motorists and bicyclists on this topic. Some people are still holding grudges from close encounters years ago.

Jim K. of Oregon City, for example, hasn't forgotten what happened to him at the corner of Southwest 12th Avenue and Jefferson Street in Portland on a morning in 1991.

"As the light greened, I began walking," he recalled in an e-mail. "Then I saw a fast accelerating, left turning TriMet bus aiming right at me. I lunged back with a couple feet to spare from becoming hamburger. I screamed at the driver, who then stuck the middle finger of his left hand out window."

Jim says he called the TriMet complaint line about the driver. He's still waiting for a call back. "I haven't ridden TriMet since," he wrote.

Some readers wanted to know about the status of the driver who blew through a red light shortly after noon on Jan. 25, causing Vancouver resident Johnny Micah to crash into the side of the bus. The collision at a downtown Portland intersection injured two passengers on the No. 9 bus and totaled Micah's yellow Ford escape.

As I mentioned in the column, bus driver Arthur McIntosh has now wrecked three buses in less than two years behind the wheel for TriMet. Bekki Witt, a TriMet spokeswoman, said McIntosh started in September 2007. He has had one crash that "was determined to be preventable" and two others, including the one last month, that are still pending final judgment.

TriMet says McIntosh is on leave, pending review of the latest wreck. I left a message for McIntosh at his home last Wednesday and his girlfriend called. "Art's not here," she said, "this is his first day back driving. So it's a pretty big day. I can tell you that he had a perfect driving record before going to work for TriMet. It must be all of the stress of driving a big bus."

OK. I feel bad for the guy. But isn't that the job he signed up for? McIntosh still hasn't got back to me to answer that question.

Witt, however, disputed that McIntosh was back to driving his routes. "He has not returned to driving," Witt said. "He is meeting with his manager this week, where disciplinary action will be discussed."

Meanwhile, David Karlin, a Portland traffic accident reconstructionist, had problems with the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757's claim that its drivers need 120 feet to safely stop an empty bus, versus 30 feet for a family car. It lacks credibility, Karlin said.

"The bus braking system, even when the bus is empty, is only marginally less effective than a sedan for full emergency braking (skidding)," he wrote. "An extra 10 to 20 feet might be needed, not an extra 90 feet. Thirty feet is a good estimate for a car, a bus might need 40-50 feet."

Both the bus driver and the car driver need time to perceive and react to the upcoming red light, Karlin said. At 25 mph, the bus and car would both travel an additional 55 feet before the brakes could even be applied.

The bottom line: "There is no excuse for a long commercial vehicle (the bus) to run a red light," Karlin wrote, adding that the large vehicles tend to take up to three times longer to move through an intersection and cause greater damage in a crash because they weigh 10 to 20 times more than a car.

On the other hand, Chad Dornsife, executive director of the Portland-based Best Highway Safety Practices Institute, said the problem in Portland isn't as much the bus driver's as the city's traffic engineers. He shared a Powerpoint presentation that he gave at an Institute of Transportation Engineers conference, arguing that Portland's "signal practices in our view are not only unlawful, but truly unsafe."

Buses and other slow-moving vehicles, Dornsife argues, "don't have to stop safely because the yellow interval and all red phases are not set to meet their needs."

The influx of red light cameras is largely to blame for engineering that no longer accommodates large, slower-moving vehicles. "It has only deteriorated as these devices become the great hope for additional revenue," Dornsife wrote in an e-mail, "at the clear expense of safety."

Speaking of redlight cameras, I'm still having a hard time believing, as TriMet insists, that it doesn't keep track of the photo tickets sent to the agency. Witt says TriMet doesn't have a "tracking mechanism" for red-light violations, even those caught by traffic-enforcement cameras and sent to the transit agency for payment. Last year, she said, TriMet riders lodged 270 complaints about drivers running red lights, which made up only about one percent of total complaints.

I'm puzzled as to why a public transit agency wouldn't keep a tally of specific moving violations. I'm still pushing TriMet to dig up some numbers. Without them, it's hard to know the extent of the problem in Portland.

I've also asked Portland police to share training videos of officers being verbally battered by bus drivers they have caught running red lights, as they have reported happening on occasion.

Of course, readers who have survived close encounters with red light-running buses insist the problem is bigger than anyone, even the police who have ticketed TriMet drivers, are willing to admit.

On his Walking Portland blog, Brett Burmeister has posted stories of nearly getting mowed down by red light-running buses as he walks about town. Recently, he said, a friend grabbed his arm and pulled him back to the sidewalk after a TriMet bus rounded a corner at a red light without stopping. "I didn't see it coming," Burmeister said, describing how he could smell the big rig's diesel and fill it cutting the air as it missed him by centimeters.

"A couple of years ago, the city installed a red light camera at 4th and Jefferson by City Hall," Burmeister said. "I remember them releasing the statistic for the first weekend on how many cars and buses ran that red light and how much in fines would have been issued. I always wondered: TriMet is a public agency. If they are getting tickets, wouldn't that be public record?"

I'm wondering the same thing, and pressing my case with TriMet. Stay tuned.